Category: Tips

Posted on

How to Get Rid of Ad Overlays When Posting Videos on Your Site

Here are a few web video tips you may find helpful as you consider if you are ready to expand your video postings on your website.

Google loves it when a site uses YouTube for videos, but customers hate putting web videos on YouTube due to the ad overlays.

I recently ran into an issue where we were putting a video on the home page of a website in a key position that is the very first thing any visitor will see. Once loaded to YouTube and embedded in the website my first reaction was URGH look at those ads mid-stream and at the end of the video that stay up obscuring my clients work.

There are two things that you can do to prevent ads on your videos. 1.) Turn off monetization in your YouTube account so ads do not appear on your videos. 2.) Use a free service like the Basic Vimeo account.

You can watch these videos for nice instructions on how to turn off ads in YouTube. It is a 2 step process. First turn off ads and then go into the info/settings of each video travel to the monetize section and turn off for each video.  This video shows you how to turn off the pre-video ad in your channel settings. This is a nice video that explains the second process.  What is important to know is that you are in control of the monetization of your own videos. But by default, it looks like if you don’t manually turn monetization off, Google will slap ads all over the start, middle and end of your video.

Alternatively you can use Vimeo. I like the interface and like that you can customize the player. The downside is that Google loves it’s owner properties. I see YouTube videos in the search results all the time, but would be hard pressed to say that I regularly see Vimeo videos in the search results.

The choice is yours which service you’ll use, but for now, I am actually using both.

Posted on

Introducing Our New Website

The New McCord Web Services Website.
The New McCord Web Services Website.

We’ve launched our new website last week and invite you to take a look at https://www.mccordweb.com.

Created using a new responsive framework from Project Seven, our new site is made for speed. We have utilized a number of different page layouts using the Zeitgeist page pack.

Our new site features a return to our original colors from years past of a blue-green, gray, and black and we have moved to https.

We have revamped our content, streamlined our services, and introduced new offerings.

As part of our change, we will be changing up our marketing mix.

  • Our newsletter will disappear in October.
  • Our blog postings will move from twice a week to monthly.
  • Our blog posting will be longer, more thoughtful articles.
  • Our social media will focus on LinkedIn engagement.

You will start to see these changes over the next month as we work out pre-scheduled content.

We look forward to many more years serving our clients.

Visit the site now.

 

Posted on

Speak Instead of Write Your Blog Posts

Using Speech to Text
Using Speech to Text

This past week I may have broken my wrist, my right hand wrist!  As I can’t type with my left hand and even mousing with my left hand is hard, I decided I would try speech to text. In fact I am dictating this blog post right now.

First, I bought a CMTech Studio USB microphone on Amazon. I bought it because it was inexpensive and it was an easy plug and play item . I got delivery in one day. I plugged the device into my computer and it immediately recognized it. Then I followed the very short instructions to start speaking to text.

Windows makes it very easy to integrate speech to text with a microphone. Using the dictation menu, I’m able to have the microphone listen to me and even add punctuation.

Now Instead of being worried that I won’t be able to work or send emails with a broken wrist in a cast, I’m able to talk to my computer and it will write exactly as I speak. I can then do minor punctuation and spacing corrections and still be able to get out a nice volume of content with a hand in a brace.

To turn on speech to text the first time, click the Windows icon on your keyboard and then H at the same time to open up the dictation menu. You then click the microphone in the dictation bar to allow your microphone to listen to you and then Windows does the magic and converts it into text.

You can use this very cool application in any text field. Right now I’m using the microphone to type into WordPress. I’ve also tried speech to text in Outlook and Gmail. It is really easy to use and fast to set up.

You can read more about windows speech to text at the link below.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14198/windows-7-dictate-text-using-speech-recognition

 

Posted on

The Value of Social Media for Your Business

What to Know About Social Media
What to Know About Social Media

In the eyes of many business owners the value of social media is shrinking. Does that mean that you should move out of posting to your blog, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn?

It depends on where your audience is and how active your followers are. Although you may never be able to say that you got a lead from Twitter, there may still be value to your business and brand by posting on the Twitter platform.

For most businesses, I like LinkedIn posting, for news and information I like Twitter, and to connect with and announce promotions to consumers, I like Facebook.

Each platform has a unique use for your business, but when the value stops, it is time to look carefully at where you invest your time and money and make sure that your investment still makes sense.

If you need help with social media or analyzing which platforms are the best fit for your business and audience consider our services to provide a honest opinion and quality content.